23 September 2014

23 September 2014 – The Greek χῖ

Narrow-winged Grey (Eudonia angustea)

Fore wings narrow, elongated, ashy-brown, with darker clouds and three whitish streaks, -the first near the base, broadly edged on both sides with brown; the second, strongly incurved beyond the middle (and between these three indistinct dusky marks, the outer one somewhat resembling the Greek chi, placed on a dusky space); the apical portion of the wing brownish, with an outwardly curved white streak, and a marginal row of black dots. Taken in London and various parts of Kent in June.  

British Moths and their Transformations 1845.

Does that help?

Narrow-winged gray (Eudorea angustea) Fig 1.

Two moths from the last catch were new to me so Charlie Fletcher was given the task of identification.  The first remains a mystery – only dissection would have resolved the problem and the moth is no longer in captivity.  The other moth was easier though.  It had to be a eudonia or scoparia but I couldn’t work out which one it could be.  The description in British Moths and their Transformations confused in its attempt to clarify and illustrations and photographs on the internet made it difficult to be absolutely sure.  Charlie gave the answer: Eudonia angustea (Narrow-winged grey) – the scientific name meaning ‘the narrower one that rests on trees’. The other moth above (3) is Eudonia mercurella which we trapped last week.  

The other mysterious leaf-miner below represents one of over a hundred Nepticulidae, a family of moths that can often be identified by the tracks that are visible on the leaves of the food-plant.  This moth was tiny – not much more than 2mm – and very active and had to be photographed in a plastic tube.

A Nepticulidae